Crush
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: He wanted to tell Foggy that people bled, that it wasn't a big deal. That he had worse on any given Tuesday night. (Part of the "Cut Again" series previously posted to AO3 and tumblr)


Sound moves significantly faster through solid materials than air. It was a fact Matt knew long before eighth grade science lab when a student teacher had tapped a tuning fork on a piece of PVC. Sound moves faster still through denser materials, the waves riding on tightly packed molecules. Fast through concrete. Really, really fast through steel. He'd been able to pick out a length of iron rebar in a concrete wall since he was 10.

Now, he let the final thundering sound waves pass through a piece of cinderblock that lay not half a foot from his head. Listening, intently, at the sudden quiet. Not silence, not at all, but just as jarring after a solid twenty minutes of shattering glass and frantic yelling and chunks of ceiling raining down from two floors above.

It was a writhing sort of quiet, too. A buzzing- the sounds of shock and frantic uncertainty slowly crescendoing as the immediate danger passed. Hearts were still beating frantically, small children crying for their parents through dust-filled air. A symphony of text notifications and ringtones going unanswered.

Everywhere he could sense, people were poised for a second, tensed, before the weight of what they'd just lived through fully dawned on them.

Matt forced himself inward. Even the "quiet" version of the mall was suddenly overwhelming, and he needed to take stock before he could move to help anyone else.

Scratches adorned most exposed skin across the left side of his body. They stung but were ultimately inconsequential. His shoulder hurt as though he'd driven it into the ground. In the melee he couldn't remember how or when that had occurred, only that it must have for him to be lying here. His left leg was sandwiched between a portion of fallen ceiling tile and the floor and he flinched as his survey scrutinized it for injury. The lower half burned, hot, like someone was holding a brand to the skin. But he could feel his feet and toes, could move his leg where the chunk of ceiling allowed, could move his ankle. Superficial, then. He'd been lucky this time.

Outside himself, the world had begun to roar again. People sobbing in pain and shock. People talking yelling into cell phones. Sharp intakes of breath that indicated injuries. People wheezing through the dusty air. Disrupted patterns of breathing. The smells of blood and vomit and marrow and tears and fresh urine and spilled cleaning supplies and several stores' worth of broken perfume bottles and lotion and candles all vying for his attention.

He almost made himself shut down again, but that was not an option. He took two slow, deep breaths, the brick dust coating his nose and mouth and throat and almost making him gag. Blood was pooling below the injury on his leg. He could feel it hot against his torn, swelling skin and cold against the epoxy floor. He was shaking. He coughed. Unacceptable.

"Matt!" Foggy's voice, edged with panic, emerged from the cacophony and mixed with the smell of his sweat and aftershave. Cement dust drifted from him but Matt could smell no blood on him to indicate injury. Matt sat slowly, not completely trusting his body to have truthfully assessed himself for injury. "Don't move, buddy, the building came down." Foggy's breath was coming in pants.

"I noticed." Matt said, calmly, distracted, "You okay, Foggy?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." He was moving constantly, his head twitching from side to side. Adrenalin was running high. Not fully panicking, but close to it. "Are- are you hurt, Matt?"

Some blood was soaking up Matt's pant leg, but the rest of the injury was hidden beneath the chunk of ceiling. "I'll live." Matt said truthfully. The lost control over sensory input was far worse than the injury. He focused hard, trying to pull it back in check. Claire wasn't coming up on his radar, but his radar was crowded with a thousand other things. No reason to worry, he told himself.

"Matt, you're bleeding!" So is everyone else, Matt thought, cringing. There was a dampness on his face. Scalp wounds bled a lot, unfortunately. Didn't mean they were anything to worry about.

Foggy wasn't going for his face, though. He was trying to move the chunk of ceiling that was pinning Matt to the floor. "It's fine, I'm okay." Matt said deliberately. Calmly. In a way that should have conveyed that he was not at all worried about the growing patch of blood under his lower leg and the wound it represented. He kept his breath even as Foggy tried to force the piece of rubble up and out of the way, heard him grunt with effort as the tile lifted slightly and grated against his leg in a way that was way more painful than it should have been. "Leave it, Foggy." He paused, the words having no effect on his determined friend. "Foggy! Stop!" The weight came back down on his leg and his head swam. He tasted bile.

"Shit, Matt."

"I'm okay."

"Like hell you are."

"Lot of other people need help, here, Foggy."

"Lotta other people aren't you, Matt. That's a lot of blood." He wanted to tell Foggy that people bled, that it wasn't a big deal, that he had worse on any given Tuesday night. Foggy was being a friend, a really good one at that, but Matt had a visceral dislike for special treatment. He didn't need it and he certainly didn't deserve it. There was a short moment of uneasy quiet between them as Matt weighed how much better and worse the situation would be made by him throwing up.

"Have you seen Claire?" He asked instead, changing the subject and swallowing bile again.

"No" Foggy said, turning to survey the area. "You know where she was when everything went to hell?"

"There." Matt pointed, sensing her voice for the first time in the discord. She was as calm as he was outwardly, but there was an edge of pain in her voice, her heart beating hard and fast. Focusing as hard as he could, he could smell blood on her. She was hurt worse than he was. Talking to someone else. Putting pressure on someone else's wound. Hiding it. Foggy would want her to come over here. She'd do it. He couldn't have that. It wasn't that bad.

As much as it ached to have her hurt, she was doing her job. He could respect her for that even if he didn't approve of it. Foggy had already turned to get her. "Wait, Foggy. I changed my mind, help me up?" He asked. Foggy stopped for a second. Matt could imagine his confusion even if he couldn't sense it objectively. "Just lift it up a little, I'll pull my leg out." Matt said reasonably. He was pretty sure the wound was exclusively external. Deep, the blood confirmed, but it didn't smell or feel like there was any bone involved, so moving shouldn't do that much damage…

"Okay…" he felt Foggy come around his side and get a grip under the piece of ceiling. "Ready?" He asked. Matt nodded, setting his face and gritting his teeth in preparation.

"Hhhgggh" Matt let out a controlled grunt, forcing his leg out from under the chunk of ceiling. He screwed his eyes shut and forced his back against the cool floor and his breathing under control. The piece of ceiling hit the floor again, this time without his leg for padding.

"Whoa, Matt don't move, okay?" Foggy said, his voice suddenly overtaken by calm. Matt froze. It was not a good voice out of Foggy. "You got a big piece of glass in your leg." Matt relaxed. That wasn't great but it wasn't life threatening yet. And it explained the extra pain. So he wasn't just going soft. That was actually pretty reassuring.

"Wha- what color's the blood?" Matt asked. Sound through concrete and sound through glass moved at similar speeds, he wasn't exactly shocked he hadn't figured it out through the rest of the competing sensory input.

"Uuuh, red, like usual." Foggy said.

"Dark or bright?" He grimaced.

"Dark, I think?" Foggy said uncertainly.

"My kinda day." Matt said, the edge of his mouth curling up in a wry smile. Small miracles, the blood was from a vein, not an artery. The glass was still in his leg- a long, thin shard about six inches wide and two deep, stuck longways into his flesh about an inch. He took his jacket off and carefully tied the sleeves around the top and bottom to stabilize it. Through the continuing chaos, the fire and emergency medical systems from other counties were arriving, backup to the forces already working.

Matt didn't even have to ask as Foggy pulled Matt's arm around his shoulders. More slowly than Matt would have liked, they made their way over to Claire.


End file.
